Groupon's Andrew Mason Says "Grow Up" While Drinking Beer

Sometimes, you have to just applaud the honesty of people. While speaking both with his employees and with the Wall Street Journal recently, Groupon

CEO Andrew Mason didn't hesitate to admit that his company needs to grow up. Amusingly, he also apologized for drinking so much beer while making the admission. First of all, here's the disclosure. Benzinga and Groupon are affiliates, both tied to investment group Lightbank. However, we report the facts and we do so without prejudice or favoritism. We owe our readers that. It should also be noted that it is not unusual for small companies and startups to have beer in the fridge. Part of the deal with a small company is that the employees will be spending an awful lot of time together in the office, often outside of normal working hours. No criticism should be attached to the basic notion of brainstorming over a drink from time to time. However, when Mason's voice broke and he apologized for "too much beer", he will know himself that he was being startlingly naïve. But hey, let's not jump on Mason too hard. He is looking to put things right. While saying that GRPN "must avoid taking stupid risks", he was referring as much to himself as his staff. Isn't that refreshing? Mason said of Groupon that, "We're still this toddler in a grown man's body in many ways." It is easy to imagine what he means. Groupon is a company that grew from an idea to an adventure, and now it is a publically traded company. That all happened very fast, and the "small team" mentality, the "family and friends" vibe, likely still exists. Moreover, that close-knit and social atmosphere is probably a big reason that the company got so far so fast. But Mason knows that, if the company is going to succeed going forward in the face of some disappointing recent numbers, they have to change, or adjust, that corporate culture a little. Mason knows this. He has said that Groupon doesn't "have any margin for error", and that employees are going to be hearing management talk a lot about compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley accounting rules. Mason went on to say that the financial revisions planned at Groupon are, "the latest in a string of just us making an example of how bad we are at being a public company. We have to get good at this." Isn't honesty, like a cold beer, refreshing?